The charges have been challenged loudly--almost immediately after the article came out, other people familiar with her work came forward to call the piece baseless. But once the cat was out of the bag, there was no stuffing it back in....

[T]he coup de grâce may have come last night when Sotomayor bashing traveled outside the beltway, and on to the Late Show...

Beutler notes the speculation that Rosen was trying to help his brother-in-law — go to the link for the details — and procures a denial from Rosen.

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What’s interesting about the "Sotomayor isn't smart" meme is that it's the first time--in my memory at least--that a major figure on the left is getting labeled as dim. Every other time it's been conservatives who have been called stupid: Reagan, Quayle, Bush II, Palin. It's refreshing to see a liberal tagged as not too smart, and see that tag potentially driving how she's covered in the media.

I anticipate a careful response from Rosen (whose reputation is now on the line).

His reputation is on the line for a very good reason: his hatchet piece on Ms. Sotomayor was all sorts of bad. I did love Wonkette's take-down of it, though: Hilarious.

Hit pieces such as Rosen's make me want Obama to nominate Sotomayor simply so the breathtaking stupidity of Rosen's article -- and all that anonymous sourcing, that I loathe -- is brought to light so everyone sees it and laughs at the article and the author.

I also think Ms. Sotomayor would bring an interesting perspective to the Supreme Court.

The left’s tendencies to personalize every debate ensures that even with the tilt of a biased MSM the splashing caused by the trashing of so many people is bound to eventually spatter one of their own.

If I'm working someplace and my job is routinely interrupted by inattention to detail on the part of others, I can either accept it and be less productive or I can call the others out on their laziness and shame them into doing what they are supposed to.

She has not tanked. She's trading at 32.8 on Intrade. Intrade historically has large spikes.

She might not be smart enough. Needs to be investigated further.

But if she is an affirmative action pick, let's face it, the pool of affirmative action picks is much greater amongst liberals than it is amongst conservatives.

I mean if you're a black, Republican, lawyer, your chances of ending up on the Supreme Court are about 10%. Why? Because there are exactly 2 black, Republican, lawyers in the entire country, and there's probably a 1 in 5 chance that Republicans will appoint another black to the Supreme Court. If you're a black, Democratic, lawyer, your chances of ending up on the Supreme Court are about 0.0001%.

Roughly five minutes could be four minutes or it could be six minutes so the number is five minutes. We ought not fight the facts as given. Mr. Greenwald was there and he's trying to defend Judge Sotomayer so he has incentive to minimize the intensity of the tirade.

Since the courtroom was packed with lawyers for other cases, I assume Judge Sotomayer was calling some kind of list. Mr. Greenwald’s mistake violated one of her own personal rules (was it even published?) but she saw fit to waste five minutes of everybody’s time and then she gives him a second chance with an adjournment, anyway. So it wasn’t so big a deal after all.

Mr. Greenwald would have us believe such pointless hissy fits from the bench are common.

Anonymous source says Rosen picks his nose and eats his boogers. An ex-coworker reports that although Rosen has family and few friends, they only tolerate him because he has free alcohol and his gatherings are only a few a year. Another anonymous source says he scratches his arse then sniffs his fingers. One person, who doesn't want to be named said he saves the hair from his brush and tucks it back in.

An intern at the Republic said Rosen had the worst case of halitosis they ever smelled and that he had a terrible habit of looming over her, oops, them when he spoke, but that sort of cleared up when he went in for a colonoscopy. But not of this can be verified.

Supporters say at least he's not a giant smelly cow that fart all day. Another supporter said, "Well, even though he holds his knife and fork like a child at least he manages to get most of the food into his mouth, and those polyester ties are washable."

But I haven't actually read a single article Rosen wrote so it's possible I'm not conveying a fully informed opinion.

save_the_rustbelt said...Does Ms. Bazelon have a really cheap camera, or is she jaundiced?I don't think it's the camera. She's just a very bitter cynical woman exhibiting or influenced by envy, distaste, or hostility.

about glenn greenwald:any reference to wonkette makes me suspect the intelligence of the blogger. anyone who would write this about themselves loses even more credibilty:"I had a generally low opinion of the intellect of most judges -- it's one of the things I disliked most about the practice of law -" what a horse's ass.

Anonymous sources say he fucks goats for fun.AL, did you make that up all by yourself? Clev-er!

Actually, I do recognize it. It is the rote response of liberals to any lightly-sourced allegation against a fellow liberal. It was used most memorably and pathetically across dozens of blogs as a way to shut down Mickey Kaus' legitimizing the love-child allegations against John Edwards. Has anyone ever owned up to how lame that was, and what knee-padded dupes Edwards made of them? I guess not, because AL still thinks "he fucks goats" is a laff riot.

As for Ms. Sotomayor: The Rosen piece was extremely fishy, and I hate that kind of journalism. It kind of reminds me of what Palin was put through, though I'm sure AL will bristle at the comparison. Although I wouldn't nominate her, I kind of hope Obama has the balls to do it. Souter was a stealth advocate for liberal jurisprudence. He didn't want to debate it, he just wanted to slide it into place when no one was looking. We need the best possible advocate for the liberal side -- articulate, proud and intellectually fearless, as tough as Scalia. Then the people will be able to choose the direction they want the court to go in the next election.

Jeffrey Rosen's brother-in-law is Neal Katyal, the current Deputy Solicitor General in the Obama administration. If Sotomayor's prospects are torpedoed, that could clear the way for one of the other leading candidates to be named to the Court: current Solicitor General Elena Kagan. The selection of Kagan (rather than Sotomayor) would almost certainly result in Rosen's brother-in-law (Katyal) becoming Solicitor General.If that was his motive, Rosen is sneaky and clever...

If the more likely explaination is true, that Rosen was the 1st one in the liberal MSM media that was not simultaneously lapping at Obama's balls while casting rose petals at the feet of Sotomayor. The 1st to say lets move past Sotomayors many affirmative action bomus points that had Lefties ecstatic about her to ask if she was qualified in what should be the top group by intellect and temperment.

EDH at 8:43 has the right of it. This could be something of a decoy to throw everyone off the scent. Another analogy to use is the Knute Rockne technique to wear out and demoralize the other team. Rockne would often not start his first string, but instead would start the second string. The other team would play the Notre Dame second string (which was pretty good) for a quarter, then Rockne would send in the first string to finish them off. Could be the same thing here. Obama will let everyone play themselves out and then swoop in with the real nominee. Stranger things have happened.

As for SMU's fine school, it's the, ahem, Dedman School of Law.I was making a reference to one of the criticisms of Harriet Myers, that even though she went there it was just not good enough, when in fact it a very good school. Excuse my lack of precision on the name but having worked at one of largest law firms in Dallas, it was mostly just referred to as SMU when jousting with colleagues, mostly from UT.

I think that labeling the Letterman clip as anti-Hispanic says something about the right's continuing ignorance about what actually constitutes bigotry. Intolerant attitudes exist on the left, of course. And Letterman's no liberal. But wherever the perceptions of Sotomayor as intemperate and not sufficiently intelligent originate, it's not Letterman's job as a comedian to declare that they can have absolutely no cultural basis in origin.

If there was no well-defended perception of the judge as intemperate and less intelligent than the job will require, then one could plausibly accuse Letterman of stoking a hate-fest. Otherwise, as FLS says, he's just being juvenile. And are you saying he chose the clips simply because they were in Spanish? Because that's the sort of broad speculation that typically forms the basis of your defenses of actual bigotry and frequent charges of anti-majority "bigotry"/reverse-racism here - i.e. that the perception of intolerance is simply a reflection of the bias in the accuser's mind.

"Is Letterman mocking Sonia Sotomayor or mocking the mocking of Sotomayor?"Neither. They heard that there was a latina in the running which gave them an opportunity to use that latin tv court show clip. Whether that's "anti-Hispanic" or not depends on how sensitive you are about this sort of stuff (I thought it was funny, but then again I'm not Hispanic).